I've been reading a couple of things lately. Generally in the morning it's a combination of carl jung and maybe an art magazine. Today carl jung was talking about the trickster archetype. To me this character of the psyche didn't make as much sense as others such as the anima or mother archetypes. While it certainly is easy to imagine a joker the whole nature of it seemed unclear re: how it expresses itself and represses itself. He seems to be transfixed on the idea that everything has an opposite and that seems to inform a lot about how the psyche works. For instance if the trickster archetype is not present consciously it is not because it doesn't exist but rather it's lurking in the unconscious.
Perhaps it was unclear because he relates this figure through allusions of myth and descriptions of medieval festivals without making it real in the now although I guess myths are kind of timeless. This figure is also curious in that it isn't tied to gender as much as other archetypes are. I felt like it was one jung hasn't spent much time thinking about.
He also got a little bourgeois. Relating the trickster to someone who isn't in authority and mocks it by taking it's methods and profaning it. One passage was amusing that people burned incense made from an old shoe right next to a church alter. Jung admitted this character isn't so prevalent in modern culture compared to pagan societies that had feast days for this particular mindset. But honestly I have to disagree as this seems to be the goal for a lot people who associate themselves as punks and festivals such as marde gras and halloween.
The myth side was interesting because characters assigned this archetype are generally mischievous but end up also being a character that will as he says a 'saviour.' It reminds me a lot old greek stories that involve the forrest god pan. He's known for his promiscuity and dubious behaviour chasing after beauty that doesn't seem to feel the same way towards him. But in the particular story I'm reading now he assists two characters who are in many ways associated with the forrest and nature and he helps to nurture them to realize their love--often by creating chaos towards those who try to capture one of them.
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Too much information: Sylvia lavin on the 14th venice architecture biennale
The article I read in artforum was about an architecture exhibition. It didn't seem to focus on much of what the exhibit was about. It was more focused on the curator and his role in presenting the content. He assumed a powerful role and rather than be democratic about the content.
There seemed to be little uproar about this will to power and the article noted that previous exhibitions that were avant guard art biennials had a comparable tumultuous coup feeling to it.
Architecture surprised me in it's nature. As a child I was interested in it, but it is also embodies permanence and a manifestation of a particular viewpoint. It's relation does seem to be intertwined with a power regime and it can be oppressive. The new structures being built in philadelphia seem to take a neoliberal guise and remind me a capitalist ethos. They seem very clean but lack a lot of decoration and are very box like. They reveal a sense of alienation and conceal a house's function as a domestic space.
The exhibition seemed to confirm the magazines prejudice towards architecture as a profession claiming that the exhibition was a stepping stone compared to what's been done before such as take into political factors of architecture but also took this as a remedial effort compared to the furvor in which art exhibitions cause controversy. Although it certainly gave more praise to this than it did in the article about the 9-11 museum in new york which it likened to some freudian repression of unpleasant realities.
But the curator was rem koolhaas. I'm not sure why the article was so complacent to his autocratic authority. Taking a look at the buildings he's designed feels like the cd jackets for a radiohead album. It's as if they are okay with the monumentalizing of an alienating capitalist agenda.
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